The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1887-03-17


as ink, the depth was so extreme.n Next
morning he visited the spot
"And saw the black accursed pool
With a Wild misgiving eye;
And he saw the dead in the river bed,
For the faithiess stream was dry"
He next covered the corpse with heap of
leaves. but a mighty wind swept past and
laid the secret bare before the sun.
''Then down 1 cast me on my face,
And first began to weep,
For knew my secret then was one
That earth refused to keep;
On land or sea though it should be
Ten thousand fathoms Deep
In the world within, sin finds us out.
How wonderful is the little world in every
breast over which conscience reigns. Con-
science is the voice of God in the soul; Or,
as Paul calls it, s'the law Of God written in
the heart" Thus each is ever hearing Of
a court of justice in himself
Some sinners are never found out in the
world around; they are not openly pun
ished; but for all that they don't escape.
They carry detective within from whom
they might escape if they could tear out
their very nature. Conscience finds them
out. Any how conscience does worry the
sinner with remorse
] must tell you what remorse is: A fox
was once caught in a trap, but in the morn
| ing only one of his legs was found. The
wise creature when caught concluded that
it would be better to limp back to his den
with three legs, than, having four legs. to
perish in pain. He turned upon his leg and
gnawed it through. The fox teaches you
| the exact meaning of remorse; for the word
| means to bite backwards, to gnaw one's
Sc If.
| Sin finds the sinner out when conscience
devours the soul. That heather New
Zealander understood this, who gave back
| a coin that he had stolen from the white
man, because of the quarreling going on
inside him, as he said, between the good
| man and the bad man. In the newspapers
| there is often notice headed, Cen
| science Money" People who have cheated
| the tax-gatherer afterwards send the
money they should have paid him-found
out not by the tax-gatherer, but by their
own conscience Many criminals have
given themselves up to the Judge because
! the prison, and even death itself, was not
so dreadful as remorse, and some, Ike
Judas, have killed Themselves because
| death did not seem so terrible as life tort
ured by a guilty conscience.
Many men have lots of money and fine
houses and splendid health, and yet the
| fixed scowl on the brow, the curled lip, the
fierce eye, the joyless face, the bitter
words, show that they are not happy.
| Whya Sin has found them out in the
world within, and they will not come to
the Saviour for pardon and peace.
| Even Nero, the monster, had to fly from
the spot where he had caused his mother
to be murdered. Under the lashes of con-
science he fancied that he was haunted by
her angry ghost, and that he heard the
blowing of ghostly trumpet AMI wailings
over her tomb. He was like the infidel
Lord LyttOn, who was sometime, SO
| frightened that he rushed into the bed
room of a friend in order that he might, in
his company, shield himself from the ter
| rors of the spiritual world. At last he had
to forsake his splen did mansion, be cause il
| was too near the grave of one whom he
| had ruined.
The poet Byron confesses how his sin
| had found him out. To escape from
thoughts of sin and self he took TO travel
ing, as thousands do; but he felt like the
unresting Cain, for travellers beyond the
seas change their cline but not their con
science. Memory and conscience break
out like plague in ship in which the
prodigal hopes to sail anew from his sin.
It would be a grand mistake to think
that only great sinners and great Sins are
found out by conscience. De Quincy, the
opium eater, tells US what he felt about it.
He saw mighty phantom, ever growing
more and more colossal, striding after him
in pursuit from forgotten days. One folly
most people would have thought little OF
| it-one folly at the age of seventeen
haunted him for more than half century
| un fn mir
whispering gallery in St Paul's, London.
A word whispered ever so gently is loudly
re-echoed at the other. In youth con
science child him in sullen whispers; in old
age, at the other end of his life gallery, the
same conscience spoke to him as in peals
of thunder. The STILL small voice which
the boy needed not returned to the old man
like the crack Of doom in terrible self-re
proaches.
What an awful discoverer Of sin your
conscience isl Be sure your sin, whether
it be great or small, will find you out
Augustine says that his old sins haunted
him in his dreams. Cowper used to sit il
the farthest corner Of the room, imagining
that the voice of conscience was loud
enough for every one to hear 1t. Samue
johnson told friend that the reason {
often started and spoke to himself in com
pany was that he was upbraiding himself
for the sins of his youth. A man whose
outward life was blameless told me that
he once lay at deaths door for a few days
He remembered his whole past life, or
rather, he saw it all as in a picture. His
mind was strangely strengthened and en-
larged, so that he was able to take in the
whole at once. Little acts done in his
boyhood, such as unkind words and the
stealing of little things from his mother
and sisters, thousands of such deeds
seemed as if done yesterday, and filled him
with worse pain than that of the body
How pitiful is the case of the man whose
sin, unforgiven, finds him out when death
Is knocking at the door I have seen sucf
cases, and pray God that may never see
the like again. Death comes and the dyine
man not ready, declaring that he has nj
hopel But death won't wait! God grant
that your SIN may find yoI out now, so tina,
death may find you undismayed.
Sin finds us out in the world beyond
Moses does not say when or where our sir
will find US out; but he says that it will
surely find us out some time and some
where. Many great sinners are never
found out on earth, especially in foreign